Sarajevo Film Festival Proudly Presents a New Programme: KINOSCOPE

"Welcome to Kinoscope, a new programme at Sarajevo Film Festival programmed by three programmers new to the festival team. The section consists of 16 international features and two films in special screenings. Our mandate is to bring in titles from all around the world outside the southeastern Europe region that composes competition. That’s a big challenge bearing in mind that we had most of the world to choose from."

Mike Goodridge
Alessandro Raja
Mathilde Henrot,
Selectors
(Read more here!)

KINOSCOPE PROGRAMME:

AVALON
Sweden, 2011, DCP, Colour, 79 min.
Director and screenplay: Axel Petersén
Cast: Johannes Brost, Peter Carlberg, Léonore Ekstrand
After serving time with an ankle bracelet, Janne, a former club promoter, travels to Båstad to open an exclusive nightclub and get his life back on track.

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
USA, 2012, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour, 92 min.
Director: Benh Zeitlin
Screenplay: Lucy Alibar, Benh Zeitlin
Cast: Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry
In a forgotten but defiant bayou community cut off from the rest of the world by a sprawling levee, six year-old Hushpuppy exists on the brink of orphanhood. Her mother long gone, and her beloved father Wink a wildman on a perpetual spree, Hushpuppy is left to her own devices on an isolated compound filled with semi-feral animals. She perceives the natural world to be a fragile web of living, breathing, squirting things, in which the entire universe depends on everything fitting together just right. So when a hundred year storm raises the waters around her town, her daddy is suddenly stricken with illness, and fierce pre-historic creatures awaken from their frozen graves to come charging across the planet, Hushpuppy sees the natural order of everything she holds dear collapsing around her. Desperate to repair the structure of her world in order to save her ailing father and sinking home, this tiny hero must learn to survive an unstoppable catastrophe of epic proportions.

GOODBYE FIRST LOVE / UN AMOUR DE JEUNESSE 
France, Germany, 2011, 35 mm, Colour, 110.
Director and screenplay: Mia Hansen-Love
Cast: Lola Créton, Sebastian Urzendowsky, Magne- Hĺvard Brekke, Valérie Bonneton, Serge Renko, Özay Fecht
Paris, winter 1999. Camille is 15, Sullivan is 19. Although they love each other passionately, Sullivan wants to go travel in South America for a year - a plan that fills Camille with despair. At the end of the summer, Sullivan leaves and a few months later he stops writing to Camille. In the spring, Camille makes a suicide attempt. 2003. Camille is fully devoted to her architectural studies. She meets a well-known architect, Lorenz, who makes her once again feel confident in herself. She falls in love with him. 2007. Camille and Lorenz form a solid couple. Camille is his assistant, but she feels that she will soon be ready to start her own agency. It is then that Sullivan once more crosses her path. Despite an awkward and cold first encounter, Camille sees him again, picking things up where they left off. She has never stopped loving him; he becomes her lover. Her heart is now divided between the two loves of her life.

HIMIZU
Japan, 2011, 35 mm, Colour, 129 min.
Director and screenplay: Shion Sono
Cast: Shota Sometani, Fumi Nikaidou, Tetsu Watanabe, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Megumi Kagurazaka, Ken Mitsuishi Denden, Yosuke Kubozuka
For a junior high schooler Sumida, the life’s ambition is to become an ordinary man. His classmate Chazawa has a major crush on Sumida and her big dream is to care for and be cared by a loved one. Sumida’s long-gone father only comes back home when in need of extra cash. The mother, worsening the situation, runs off with her lover, leaving the young son without money or anybody to rely on. Things seem to calm down around Sumida with the help of Chazawa; but when Sumida’s father shows up again one night, cursing him just as always, the son cannot contain his emotions anymore, so he impulsively kills the father. Realizing that his dream can never come true, Sumida becomes obsessed with taking sanctions against evil people in the society; will he fulfill his new dark desire, or will his soul relive with the help and love of Chazawa and see the sunshine in his life once again?

HOLY MOTORS
France, 2012, DCP, Colour, 115 min
Director and screenplay: Leos Carax
Cast: Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes, Kylie Minogue, Elise Lhomeau, Michel Piccoli, Jeanne Disson
From dawn to dusk, a few hours in the life of Monsieur Oscar, a shadowy character who journeys from one life to the next. He is, in turn, captain of industry, assassin, beggar, monster, family man... He seems to be playing roles, plunging headlong into each part - but where are the cameras? Monsieur Oscar is alone, accompanied only by Céline, the slender blonde woman behind the wheel of the vast engine that transports him through and around Paris. He’s like a conscientious assassin moving from hit to hit. In pursuit of the beautiful gesture, the mysterious driving force, the women and the ghosts of past lives. But where is his true home, his family, his rest?

LAND OF OBLIVION / LA TERRE OUTRAGÉE
France, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, 2011, 35 mm, Colour, 115 min.
Director and screenplay: Michale Boganim
Cast: Olga Kurylenko, Illya Iosivof, Andrzej Chyra, Vyacheslav Slanko
When the nuclear accident at Chernobyl arrives, a young couple find that their wedding day turns into a day of disaster, destined to change their lives forever. He is a fireman called into the inferno. Years later she makes a living leading tours for tourists to the ravaged area. Caught between staying and leaving, the locals live in a state of suspended animation.

THE LONELIEST PLANET
USA, Germany, 2011, 35 mm, Colour, 113 min.
Director: Julia Loktev
Screenplay: Tom Bissell, Julia Loktev
Cast: Gael Garcia Bernal, Hani Furstenberg, Bidzina Gujabidze
Alex and Nica are young, in love and engaged to be married. The summer before their wedding, they are backpacking in the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia. The couple hire a local guide to lead them on a camping trek, and the three set off into a stunning wilderness, a landscape that is both overwhelmingly open and frighteningly closed. Walking for hours, they trade anecdotes, play games to pass the time of moving through space. And then, a momentary misstep, a gesture that takes only two or three seconds, a gesture that's over almost as soon as it begins. But once it is done, it can't be undone. Once it is done, it threatens to undo everything the couple believed about each other and about themselves. All the while, they are not alone. They are always with the guide, who witnesses their every move.

MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT
USA, 2012, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour and b&w, 104 min.
Director and screenplay: Matthew Akers
Seductive, fearless, and outrageous, Marina Abramović has been redefining what art is for nearly 40 years. Using her own body as a vehicle, pushing herself beyond her limits - and at times risking her life in the process - she creates performances that challenge, shock, and move us. MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ THE ARTIST IS PRESENT follows the artist as she prepares for what may be the most important moment of her life: a major new retrospective of her work, taking place at The Museum of Modern Art. To be given a retrospective at one of the world's premier museums is the most exhilarating sort of milestone. For Marina, it is far more: it is the chance to finally silence the question she has been hearing over and over again for four decades: "But why is this art?"

MY BROTHER THE DEVIL
United Kingdom, 2012, 35 mm, Colour, 111 min.
Director and screenplay: Sally El Hosaini
Cast: Said Taghmaoui, James Floyd, Fady Elsayed, Aymen Hamdouchi, Ashley Thomas, Anthony Welsh, Arnold Oceng, Letitia Wright, Amira Ghazalla, Elarica Gallacher, Nasser Memarzia
Mo is a young boy growing up in a traditional Egyptian household, but beyond the front door of the family's modest London flat is a completely different world - the streets of Hackney. The impressionable Mo idolizes his handsome older brother Rashid and wants to follow is his footsteps. However, Rashid, a charismatic and shrewd member of a local gang, wants a different life for his little brother and deals drugs hoping to put Mo through college. One eventful summer, Rashid's sexual awakening forces Mo to confront his own fears and phobias and threatens to tear the brothers apart.

NEIGHBOURING SOUNDS / O SOM AO REDOR
Brazil, 2012, 35 mm, Colour, 131 min.
Director and screenplay: Kleber Mendonça Filho
Cast: Irandhir Santos, Gustavo Jahn, Maeve Jinkings, W.J. Solha, Irma Brown, Lula Terra, Yuri Holanda, Clébia Souza, Albert Tenório, Nivaldo Nascimento, Felipe Bandeira, Clara Pinheiro De Oliveira, Sebastião Formiga, Mauricéia Conceição
Life in a middle-class neighbourhood in present day Recife, Brazil, takes an unexpected turn after the arrival of an independent private security firm. The presence of these men brings a sense of safety and a good deal of anxiety to a culture which runs on fear. Meanwhile, Bia, married and mother of two, must find a way to deal with the constant barking and howling of her neighbour’s dog. A slice of ‘Braziliana’, a reflection on history, violence and noise.

POSTCARDS FROM THE ZOO / KEBUN BINATANG
Indonesia, Germany, Hong Kong, 2012, 35 mm, Colour, 96 min.
Director: Edwin
Screenplay: Edwin, Daud Sumolang, Titien Wattimena
Cast: Ladya Cheryl, Nicholas Saputra, Adje Nur Ahmad, Klarysa Aurelia Raditya
This is a story of Lana. Her memories started 20 years ago, when her father abandoned her in the zoo. For 20 years, she was raised by animal trainers who also lived at the zoo. The sound of the Hippo's steps, the flapping of the Elephant's ears, the strange, flute-like sound of the Giraffe; the zoo is the only world she knows. Over time, Lana forgets her father.One day, a handsome boy, comes to the zoo. He is a charming street magician with many tricks, and Lana falls in love. She leaves the trainers and the zoo to wander the streets of Jakarta with her magician. She becomes his assistant, selling medicine and performing magic. One day, the Magician disappears while performing his magic and Lana is left alone. Lana is sold to the Planet Spa and works as a masseuse ‘with benefits.' Her customers love her, but Lana is miserable - longing for the magician and the animal trainers at the zoo. Lana escapes the spa and returns to the zoo, but when she arrives, no one else is there. She finds herself alone once again in the zoo - the sound of the Hippo's steps, the flapping of the Elephant's ears, the strange, flute-like sound of the Giraffe.

SCABBARD SAMURAI / SAYA-ZAMURAI
Japan, 2011, DCP, Colour, 103 min.
Director: Hitoshi Matsumoto
Screenplay: Hitoshi Matsumoto
Cast: Takaaki Nomi, Kazuo Takehara, Sea Kumada, Jun Kunimura, Masatô Ibu
Kanjuro Nomi is an aging samurai who only has a scabbard. With a past that made him throw away his sword and refuse to fight, he now journeys to nowhere with Tae, his only daughter. Kanjuro becomes a wanted man for deserting his lord and is sentenced to ”The Thirty-Day Feat”: a formidable task to restore a smile to the sad prince who has lost his mother. He has thirty days to complete his assignment and one chance per day; if he succeeds, he walks free. If he fails, he must commit seppuku (the Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment). The pressure is on as Kanjuro and Tae risk their lives in a battle of wits without a sword. Will the samurai be able to save himself and his beloved daughter?

SHE MALE SNAILS / POJKTANTEN
Sweden, Denmark, 2012, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour, 72 min.
Director and screenplay: Ester Martin Bergsmark
She Male Snails is a magic, unique and sensitive hybridfilm on the different aspects of a changing androgynous body. There are more aspects to a person than the eye can see. We spend our whole life trying to find a balance between sexual identities and a body that changes from childhood, to puberty, through adulthood. This is a film about the struggle finding that balance and maybe peace. Through a series of intimate bathtub conversations between the director Ester Martin Bergsmark and the writer Eli Levén, the film tells a story about survival where harsh reality get mixed up in a fictive world. Come along on a journey to the promised land of the She Male Snails - a documentary fairytale about a human between two genders, that in order to survive creates a third one.

SUMMER OF GIACOMO / L'ESTATE DI GIACOMO
Italy, Belgium, France, 2011, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour, 78 min.
Director and screenplay: Alessandro Comodin
Cast: Giacomo Zulian, Stefania Comodin, Barbara Colombo
It's summer in the countryside of northeastern Italy. Giacomo, nineteen, deaf since childhood and Stephanie, his childhood friend, sixteen, go to the river for a picnic. Like in an enchanted fairy tale they get lost in the woods and find themselves in a heavenly place, alone and free, during an afternoon that seems to last a whole summer. An apprenticeship of senses: there is no touching, yet it is all skin, breath and sighs. The sensuality accompanies their games from childhood until Stephanie and Giacomo feel the adventure that they have just experienced is nothing more than a bittersweet memory of a lost time. A story of love and initiation into adulthood where the present is mixed with memory and the past rises with the clarity and amazement of the first time. The memories are not only those that each of us carry within ourselves and suddenly remember, they are also real discoveries. We have to know that we never see things the first time, but always the second. So we discover them and remember them together.

TABU
Portugal, Germany, Brazil, France, 2012, 35 mm, Black & White, 110 min, Portugese
Director: Miguel Gomes
Screenplay: Miguel Gomes, Mariana Ricardo
Cast: Teresa Madruga, Laura Soveral, Ana Moreira, Henrique Espírito Santo, Carloto Cotta, Isabel Cardoso, Ivo Müller, Manuel Mesquita
Aurora, an elderly Portuguese woman and her Cap Verdean housekeeper live next door to Pilar, who has made it her aim in life to do good. Not that she receives any gratitude for her efforts – and certainly not from the notoriously mistrustful Aurora, who prefers to spend her remaining years losing her meagre savings at the tables of Estoril casino. When the old lady dies, Pilar gets on the track of an old lover. Making a film without referring to film history is unthinkable for director Miguel Gomes, and it’s no coincidence that his film has the same title as Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s TABU. In his third feature film outing Gomes playfully interprets and rearranges historical events: whilst the first part of his film is in black-and-white and portrays a society wallowing in nostalgia, the second part delivers everything they long for: stirring melodrama, slapstick, juxtaposition and passion.

THE TINIEST PLACE / EL LUGAR MÁS PEQUEÑO
Mexico, 2011, 35 mm, Color, 108 min.
Director and screenplay: Tatiana Huezo Sánchez
A story about man’s ability to rise, rebuild and reinvent himself after surviving a tragedy.  A story about a people that have learned to live with their sorrow; an annihilated town that re-emerges through the strength and deep love of its inhabitants for the land and the people. A tiny place nestled in the mountains amidst the humid Salvadorian jungle.

TWILIGHT PORTRAIT / PORTRET V SUMERKAKH
Russia, 2011, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour, 105 min, Russian
Director: Angelina Nikonova
Screenplay: Olga Dihovichnaya, Angelina Nikonova
Cast: Olga Dihovichnaya, Sergei Borisov, Roman Merinov, Sergey Golyudov, Anna Ageeva
A social worker, a child psychologist in the middlelife crisis, Marina, gets injured by policemen. She seeks revenge. When she finally meets the initiator of the dramatic event, she decides to use her professional skills instead of common weapons.

THE WILD ONES / LOS SALVAJES
Argentina, 2012, DCP, Colour, 119 min, Spanish
Director and screenplay: Alejandro Fadel
Cast: Sofia Brito, Leonel Arancibia, Roberto Cowal, Martin Cortari, Cesar Roldan
Like a western, it starts with an escape. Five teenagers violently escape a reform school in an Argentinean province. They travel by foot, across hills, a hundred kilometres, for the promise of a new home. They carry a few supplies and a shotgun. They hunt to feed, rob the homes they pass, get high, bathe in the river, fight with each other and make love: Their trip is an evolutionary voyage into the wilderness, one that soon becomes a mystic fable about courage and grace.